


This Too Shall Pass

by theallelse



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Also heads up for a Very Bad Word, Angst, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Gen, Homophobic Language, Hopeful Ending, If that helps at all, If you have not seen this film, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Internalized Homophobia, Like full on spoilers, M/M, Misogyny, Nor read the book, Probably best to just hang tight til you do, Self-Esteem Issues, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, They're adults so this has adult themes, because Richie just wants to make everybody else feel as bad as he does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-12 03:04:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20557175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theallelse/pseuds/theallelse
Summary: Richie tries to cope with events post-Chapter Two. Bev keeps him upright and breathing.





	This Too Shall Pass

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers ahoy.
> 
> This is set at Eddie's funeral. It's before the bridge-etching. It is not a laugh a minute. It has lashing out as a coping mechanism, plus internalised homophobia, suicidal ideation, a dash of misogyny, and shitty behaviour to boot. They're adults at a funeral, after having just been through Chapter Two. It's not a happy or particularly politically correct time in their lives.
> 
> Nothing is beta'd. This is the first time I've written in about six years, and I churned it out in 48 hours. I'm a UK-English speaker failing to write American-English conversations, so I beg you for clemency.

“It’s an empty fucking box.” 

Richie didn’t look towards the doors. Despite the congregation standing and turning as one. Despite the canned organ music ramping up a few notches. 

Instead he clenched his jaw and stared resolutely ahead. 

He didn’t want to be here, was angry that he’d been guilt-tripped into coming by Bev, who had pulled up outside his motel and refused to leave without him.

When they’d been dropped off at the church gates, they had to wait twenty minutes until the earlier service had finished. Some kid, judging by the flowers. Adults didn’t generally have wreaths in the shape of skateboards. 

The parents had left the church glassy-eyed, catatonic, supported by a gaggle of well-meaning loved ones. Richie had wanted to shake them, scream in their faces: 

_You’re not the only ones who fucking lost somebody._

He had been curious whether or not Bev would ever talk to him again if he did something inappropriate enough. Shouting at a grieving family. Inspiring hatred in strangers. Getting kicked out of a place of worship. They all seemed like sure bets. 

_Stop fucking crying otherwise I won’t keep it together._

He had swallowed the words down thickly, keeping them trapped in his chest, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood for the seventieth time in a week. At least it was _his_ blood this time.

_Stop having all your emotions when I have nothing left inside me. _

He had no fucking clue what stopped him, really. 

Bev had manhandled him into a pew and thrust an Order of Service into his hands. He was flanked by the rest of the Losers. The ones left behind.

The coffin passed them by, carried by pallbearers who were either the best actors in the world or, more likely, being paid to haul five cinder blocks encased in red satin and mahogany. Either way he didn’t recognise a single one of them. Myra's family, maybe. 

“_It’s an empty. fucking. **box**._”

Someone’s hand was on his shoulder, a brief squeeze. Half supportive, half _shut the fuck up, Richie_. It could have been Mike beside him, or Ben behind him. He hadn’t realised how difficult remaining upright was until the hand disappeared. 

“He’s a hundred feet under a fucking sinkhole,” he hissed to no-one in particular. He hadn’t expected his voice to break. “Why are we pretending to give a shit about a coffin with nobody in it? This is a fucking _farce_.” 

The people in the pew directly in front of Richie didn’t budge, spines rigid in their acknowledgement that they’d heard him but wouldn’t respond. A woman in the pew in front of _them_ wasn’t as reserved. She looked like she’d been born pre-war (of 1812, not Second World). She turned to glare at him, making a strange fluttering motion with her hand as though to dissipate his words from the air around her. 

Richie bared his teeth in what he thought could pass as a smile. She quickly turned away from him. Maybe he’d overshot the ‘smile’ mark.

Fuck her and her insistence on keeping up appearances.

Everybody sat as the Reverend made his way to the pulpit. He paused, features schooled into a sombre, neutral expression as he surveyed his flock. 

Richie wanted to do permanent damage to the Reverend’s face.

“I want to thank you all for joining me today in remembering the life of Edward…” He glanced down at his notes. Richie held his breath. “Karpsack. _Kaspbrak_, my apologies.”

Richie blinked. Blinked again. Looked around the church to see if there were hidden cameras. A large hand came down on his own, gently, firmly. What the actual fuck did Mike think he was doing? Holding his hand? In a fucking church? If anyone looked over, it would look as though Mike Hanlon was groping his thigh and that he, Richie ‘stay away from my cousin’ Tozier, was letting it happen. He yanked away from Mike’s hold and crossed his arms. 

He realised he still hadn’t exhaled. He let his breath out through his nose in what he thought was a controlled manner. After the fact, he mentally noted that he sounded unhinged.

From the corner of his eye, he could see that Mike had the good grace to look apologetic. Asshole.

“Edward was well-loved by friends and family, and his loss will be--”

Christ on a fucking bike,he needed a distraction. 

He tried to stretch his legs out but was too damned tall for the seating. His leg was jiggling in place, unable to sit still like some twelve year old in… well… church. He flexed his toes inside his new black shoes. They pinched at his heels. As he lifted his right foot slightly, the sharp bite into his ankle confirmed his suspicion; the stiff leather had rubbed through the top layers of skin. 

Three hundred dollar Oxfords. What fucking value. They’d come with him from the city. A spur of the moment purchase when he’d hoped to show everybody that he too had made something of himself. This was the first time he’d worn them. He’d bought a suit as well, but from Derry’s brand of small-town outfitter. The sort that prided itself on supplying wedding, christening, _and_ funeral suits all under one roof. 

He’d wanted to look respectable for once. 

He laughed bitterly at this before realising he was doing it out loud. Mike leaned into his side but didn’t say anything. Richie wanted to move away. He couldn’t.

“I now invite Alice Merriweather, leader of our Tuesday prayer group, to give a reading from the--”

The woman who was old enough to be God’s own mother stood and tottered towards the pulpit.

Richie wondered if throwing up in a church constituted enough evidence to require an exorcism. 

The suit he had bought was still in its bag back at the motel. It hadn’t seen daylight since the store had packaged it up for him. He wasn’t wearing socks either. He didn’t know why. 

Three hundred dollar _(fuck)_ Oxfords - as this was their name now - and a shitty pair of jeans with no socks. Uncrossing his arms, he drummed his fingers against the denim, watching his knee bounce up and down.

His whole body was vibrating. Fuck, was this how it was going to end? Not with a bang, but with his eyes rattling out of his skull like a pair of fucking maracas?

At least he’d thrown on a blazer before getting into the cab with Bev. She’d have fucking killed him if he’d worn a hoodie. He hadn’t given a second thought to his sunglasses, but Bev had picked them up from the bedside table in his poky little room and wordlessly slipped them into his pocket. 

“A truly beautiful reading, Alice, thank you for that.” The Reverend was relentless.

He needed a drink. 

Or a cigarette. 

Or a line. 

Fuck, no, not that. He was already twitching like some strung out junkie in need of a fix. He just wished it _was _because of cocaine. He sniffed absentmindedly. 

“Now, Edward’s wife Myra has requested that we spend a moment in silence, thinking about how our own lives were touched by--”

Jesus _fuck._ “No.” This time, even the pew in front of him turned around. “No, no, _fucking no_.”

Forget waiting to be thrown out for unacceptable behaviour, Richie was taking matters into his own hands.

He was dimly aware of trying to climb over Bev to get out of the church. Hearing hushed _I’m so sorry’_s and _Let me handle this, Ben _behind him. 

He wanted them to stop trying to handle him. 

He wanted them to hold him and never let go.

He had no fucking clue what he wanted.

He just knew that he needed to get these goddamn doors to open so he could finally feel as though he wasn’t trying to breath underwater.

A few steps behind him, Bev stopped the doors from slamming as Richie launched himself into the overcast afternoon. 

He kept walking until he reached the edge of the graveyard, leaned up against a family tomb and kicked off his three hundred dollar _(fuck)_ Oxfords. One landed in a pile of leaves, the other disappeared behind a headstone. He patted himself down until he found his Marlboros in the same pocket as his sunglasses. Past-Richie had been surprisingly forward-thinking for once, having grabbed a cheap-as-shit matchbook from the motel’s front desk earlier and left it tucked into his smokes. 

_Sunshine Motel and Cabins_

A cheery little yellow sun smiled up at him, _‘have a sunny day!’ _printed just below. 

Cunts.

He ripped it in two, throwing the pieces in the vague direction of the pile of leaves. Caught up in the breeze, both halves landed right back next to him. There was a mess of dried blood on the back of his foot. At some point, a pair of demure ballet flats had joined him. He ignored everything and drew a cigarette from the packet. 

It hung limply from his lips as he realised the only way to light it was at his feet.

“Got a light?”

Neither he nor Bev moved to pick up the matches.

“Talk to me, Richie.”

He was still focussed on his feet. A pebble was digging into his arch. 

“The price of oil is really rocketing, don’t you think?” He finally looked up and adamantly met her gaze. “Makes you want to go out and buy a bicycle. Maybe Bill’s ahead of the curve.”

She took a deep breath. “Please, I know this is difficult but I just want to help. Tell me how I can help.”

“I need a fucking light.”

“That’s not why you’re out here.”

“One problem at a time.” He smiled around his cigarette in the same way that he smiled at Alice Merriweather. Bev didn’t turn away. 

Richie took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked her up and down.

“Y’know, I gotta ask, Bev. You sure you picked correctly there?” He jerked his head towards the church. “Repressed married man or the glowed-up single one. The easy choice isn’t always the right one.” He leered nastily. “And you know there are other options available too.” 

Bev rolled her eyes but Richie continued.

“Cos hey, it’s a funeral, we’re all grieving, spirits are low, common sense is MIA.” He hated himself. Every word, he hated himself. He didn’t know how to shut the fuck up, that was his problem. One of his problems. Fucking laundry list. “Nobody’d judge if you wanted to sample the other goods before you _really_ committed.” He paused, smile like a broken gate. “Try before you buy.” 

Her lips were tight and she sounded as though she was reciting something she had once read in a book. “This is a tough time and you aren’t processing it rationally. You’re not thinking straight.”

“Straight as a fucking iron railing through a hell-clown’s head.” He threw his cigarette away from him. It sailed in an arc before landing in the tall grass. He was losing the logic of the conversation, but knew that he had to get that image out of his head. Because after the spearing came the single second of hope, and after the single second of hope came... “I hear that fawning over married men is all the rage nowadays. Soon Bill’ll go back home and the opportunity will--” he held his fingers up to his mouth and blew out a little puff of air, “--disappear.” 

“_Richie_,” a warning tone.

“_Beverly_,” a squeaky mimic, “I’m not gonna judge you for wanting to get your end away.” He frowned, as though hearing a duff punchline. “Doesn’t really work with women, does it? How about ‘warm your thighs’?” He mulled this over, still not totally happy. “All that mournful adrenaline running through you. I bet you could still conjure up some of the old Bev. Find a few willing participants just begging to be the well-earned friction in your...” He glanced down and left the sentence hanging. 

Bev closed her eyes, trying to maintain her composure. “This isn’t you.”

“Did you hit your head?” His body was hunched over but his eyes raised to meet her gaze. “Because this is very much me.” He nodded in agreement with himself. 

“I’m here for you.” The words were starting to stick in Bev’s throat. “I know you don’t want me to walk away.”

“Then you aren’t listening properly.” Richie all but spat at her. _Please don’t leave me. _

Her patience was waning. “Goddamnit, stop being an ass! You’re not cruel. Not like this.”

“Fuck you! I’m being an ass because I _am_ a fucking ass.” He reached down and grabbed at the mangled matchbook, fingers catching in the gravel. “Have you met me?!” A sharp bark of a laugh. He ripped out a match - taking half the cardboard with it - and scraped it uselessly against the striker. “It’s kinda my schtick. Say all the shit everyone’s thinking but too afraid to say out loud.” The laugh turned angry, then morphed into a snarl aimed at the shredded match between his fingers. “Shitty fucking motel freebies. All I want is a fucking cigarette.”

“Nobody is thinking the things you’re saying out loud.” Bev’s skin was cold against his as she took the matches away from him. 

“No? You think everybody in that church isn’t looking at an empty fucking casket and thinking ‘thank fuck it wasn’t me and mine’?” Richie tried to breathe deeply but out here was as stuffy as inside. Another breath and a hit of light-headedness. “That empty casket _**is**_ me and fucking mine.” He was horrified with himself, looked wide-eyed at Bev. “Us. Ours. He was our friend.”

She tried to move closer to him but he backed himself up against the tomb, shivering like a trapped animal.

“Yes, he was.” She went for the gentle approach. “He was yours and he was ours. He was Eddie.” 

“Then why aren’t you crying?” He aimed for _accusing_ but landed somewhere around _pleading_. “Why aren’t you--” Another gasped breath, and another, and another. “I can’t go on like this.” He was fully shaking again, unable to go any further backwards so crumpling to his knees as a compromise. “I just fucking--” _gasp_ “I can’t--” Looking around frantically but focussing on nothing at all. “I thought--” Gulping down lungfuls of air. “I thought--”

“Listen to me, you need to calm down,” Bev’s voice took on a note of desperation. She crouched down next to Richie, cupped his face in her hands, her thumbs brushing away tears from his cheeks. “You’re safe and you need to come back to me. Please, just breathe.”

“I thought, seeing Eddie again, I thought I had a chance.” He closed his eyes, leaning into Bev’s hands. He was panting now, shallow and urgent.

“_Breathe_, Richie.” She moved closer, half kneeling, wrapping one arm around his shoulder as the other cradled his head. 

His arms came up to hold her in place. He craved the physical contact, needed her to stay, soothing and cool against him. He wished someone could just sit and hold him until he told them to stop. 

“Listen to your breathing, Richie, in and out.” 

He could feel _her_ breathing. Feel how out of whack his own was in comparison. 

“When we remembered all that fucked up crap, when we remembered each other, I thought I had a second fucking chance. That we’d make it through this shitstorm nightmare and he… we...” Richie was hitching and stuttering on the words tumbling out. “Eds was my _friend_. He knew all the stupid shit. Those ‘jacking off to your mom’ jokes and the crap I gave him for being so uptight and he never, he always... He was me and mine. And now...” he trailed off.

Bev gave him time, but nothing followed.

“Now what?” She asked, gently.

He talked into her arm, words muffled. If he couldn’t hear them properly, maybe she couldn't either. 

“Now I'm a failing, trashmouth closet-case with no off switch, no concept of how to act like an adult, all topped off with a semi-pro alcohol habit. Who the fuck wants those damaged goods?“ 

He could feel Bev tense up, knew he hadn’t been lucky enough for her not to hear.

“Jesus Christ, Richie. You don’t really think that.” She left the sentence hanging, as though unsure of whether it was a question or not, unsure of how else to phrase it. 

“I don’t know how to be this. I’m not a…” 

The slurs ran through his mind at 100mph. _Fag. Queer. Fairy._ He was angry. Angry that those words existed. Angry that he had used those words before. That his own existence could be reduced to such spiteful words being spat from the mouths of fucking idiots. 

_I’m not a spiteful thing. I’m not the sum of ugly, hateful words_, his brain screamed. _I’m me. _

“I don’t know how.” Matching his voice, he suddenly felt very small. “I’m not like the rest of you. I don’t get to go home to someone and play fucking house.” The words were there, but the venom had leached away. 

Bev’s thoughts briefly flickered back to Tom, how things had been left, before she tamped that down. She thought of Ben, felt safer. The guilt at feeling safe when Richie had fallen apart in her arms did not pass her by. She didn’t know what to say.

“What am I gonna do, Bev?” Richie opened his eyes and looked up at her, sounding twelve years old again. “I don’t want to be on my own any more.” 

“I’m here for you.” She held him close and pressed a kiss to his temple. “I am always here for you. We all are.” 

He wanted to tell her that wasn’t what he’d meant. That he couldn’t keep going with three decades of repression and ignoring desires and _just fucking lying to himself_.

Twisting around, she sat next to him against the tomb. Richie wished she was still holding him. As though she heard his thoughts, she looped her arm through his and held his hand, their fingers entwined. Her head rested against his shoulder, their legs stretched out in front of them. She had felt so omnipresent when she had held him, now she seemed so small. 

“We are _not_ forgetting each other.” Bev sounded so sure, so certain. “We are _not_ leaving each other again.”

He frowned, swallowed, took a shaky breath. “I’m in my fucking forties and I don’t know how to be me. I don’t know what to do.”

“You _live_!” She had taken his anger and sent it in a whole other direction. He could hear her voice cracking. “Please, Richie. _Please_. You have to keep going, and going, and going, and going.” She moved as close as she could be to him without physically crawling into his lap. He could feel the heat of her along his side. “We didn’t walk through hell just to give up at the end.”

Richie tried to reply but a lump in his throat silenced him. He swallowed. Swallowed again. Cigarettes, he had cigarettes. Anything for a distraction. 

He didn’t want to let go of her. Awkwardly contorting himself, he fished the packet out of his blazer pocket with his other hand, opened the lid and shook. Two cigarettes remained higher than the others. He held out the packet to Bev first. He was an asshole, but not a selfish one.

“Bad habit,” as she took one of them out. The crushed matches were beside her. He leaped on the change of conversation.

“They’ll kill you, apparently.” 

She nodded silently. He released her hand so she could light one of the matches. She offered it to Richie first. The match burned quickly. He lit her cigarette off the back of his own for her. 

“I hate cigarettes.” She took a long, hard drag.

“I don’t.” He paused, corrected himself. “I _do_. But they’re cheaper than crack and I’m too pretty for meth.”

Bev’s laugh rang sharp around them. She looked gleefully horrified that she’d laughed. Richie almost felt like smiling with her. Fuck, he was exhausted.

“You can’t say shit like that in a graveyard!” She whispered happily, as though they were teenagers again about to get caught doing something forbidden. 

“What, and the declaration of being fruitier than a fucking Whole Foods was ok?” He looked at her sideways. He had no idea where they stood, what emotions he was allowed to feel. 

“I don’t think God gives a crap about who we sleep with.” There was a note of defiance in her voice.

“I don’t think God _exists_,” he shrugged.

Bev frowned at him and all he could do was snort. 

“Huh, good to know my boundaries." He nudged her shoulder. “Same sex relations, full steam ahead. Casual drug use and atheism, definitely not.” He took another pull on his cigarette. It tasted like shit. “I feel like a teenager who doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”

“Yeah…” Bev exhaled a long stream of smoke, watched it disappear around her. “Yeah.” 

“Wow. _Succinct_. Thanks for that.”

She reached over and pinched his thigh,_ hard_. He immediately pulled his legs up to defend himself. This time he smiled. 

“Fuck you, Beverly Marsh!” 

Bev huffed out a laugh as he transferred his cigarette to his left hand, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. They sat in companionable silence until they both reached filter.

“I don’t know the answers,” she finally admitted. “I have no clue what you should do about how you feel.”

He wanted to respond, but didn’t know what to say.

“Just…” Bev drew up her knees, Richie interrupted.

“If you say ‘it gets better’ I’ll start talking about heroin and Richard Dawk--”

She cut him off. “Just don’t go away. Don’t shut us out.” He nodded, not looking at her. “Talk to us, let us be there for you.” She took his hand in hers. “I love you, Richie Tozier. We all do. And I’m pretty sure you love us back.”

“Presumptuous.” _You’re the only people I have. _“We should probably go back in.”

Bev looked at him as though he’d grown a second head. “Are you serious?”

“Fuck no. There’s nothing in there.” That came out a little too truthful for Richie. He groaned as he climbed to his feet - fuck, was this him getting old? - and held out a hand for Bev. “I just can’t listen to you ramble any more about your repressed feelings for me.” 

“You’re unbearable, you know that?” Always fondly.

“Hey, look, it’s ok, I get it.” He gave her a short nod and started pulling her across the graveyard by her hand. “You heard my Lonely Hearts piece before. I’m a hot commodity, remember?” 

“Richie, you’re not wearing any shoes.” Ignoring his spiel, she frowned, more confused than anything else. “Or socks.”

“It’s how they do it in LA.” Those three hundred dollar _(fuck) _Oxfords could go fucking hang. “Marijuana and Scientology and no shoes.” He realised he had no idea where they were going, stopping short of the church gates. “Let’s stay out here?”

They leaned against the railings, just out of sight of the main doors. He pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. They made him feel bizarrely better: a jolt of confidence he knew he didn’t really have. 

“Thank you for…” He gestured towards himself ineffectually. “...before. I’m a fucking mess. You didn’t have to leave for me.”

“That’s life, but we do it anyway.” She gave a small smile. “Didn’t _have_ to, but doesn’t mean I didn’t _want_ to.” 

“Sounds like an old girlfriend of mine.”

Bev wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Jesus, Richie, that’s crude.”

“What? You brought it up.” The possibility that he could be mildly offending Bev seemed to invigorate him. “Have you actually managed to bring this conversation - outside of our friend’s funeral - around to ass-fucking? Is that what we’re talking about now?” 

“Beep beep, Richie.” Tired, but still standing next to him.

“Unacceptable? Great, I’ll add it to the list.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make my cats happy.


End file.
